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Boucher Manufacturing Company
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The Boucher Manufacturing Company was an American toy company that specialized in toy boats and toy trains. It is best remembered today as the last manufacturer of Standard Gauge/Wide gauge toy trains until the much smaller McCoy Manufacturing revived the old standard in the mid-1960s.
Boucher entered the toy train business in 1922 with its purchase of the Voltamp line of trains. Voltamp had been a direct competitor to Carlisle & Finch, the inventor of the electric toy train. Boucher modified the Voltamp trains from Carlisle & Finch's 2-inch (51 mm) gauge to match Lionel Corporation's 2+1⁄8 in (53.975 mm) Standard gauge. The Voltamp/Boucher offerings were highly accurate and detailed and occupied the premium end of the market.
For the duration of Boucher's life the market was dominated by the so-called "Big Four" of Lionel, Ives, Dorfan, and American Flyer. Like all of them, Boucher struggled through the Great Depression, and while it outlived all but Lionel, by 1940 the 2 1/8-inch Standard gauge had become an orphan standard that was priced beyond the means of most consumers. Without a smaller, more affordable product to sell, and with World War II limiting what it could produce, Boucher went out of business in 1943.[1]
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